Abit AX78 Motheboard Manufacturer Abit Category Motherboard Socket Socket AM2/AM2+ Chipset AMD 770 Editor Winston Chim Share    digg this! "... The cost of the Abit AX78 is really shocking ... it's dirt cheap, and you can't really go wrong with that price."

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Abit releases the AX78 motherboard featuring AMD's 770 chipset. It's aimed at mainstream user with a price that's very attractive.

INTRODUCTION

That's all good, but most their recently relesed motherboards are all designed for Intel processors ... so what about motherboards for AMD processors? Well, Abit knows that AMD processors are more likely to attract the budget/mainstream users, because of the price. So, it's only natural that they've produced several motherboards using AMD's new 7xx series chipset. We now have the Abit A-S78H and AX78 motheboards ... all comptible with AM2/AM2+ processors from AMD.

Eariler this year we reviewed MSI's K92A Platinum motherboard, which uses the AMD 790FX chipset. Using the less than impressive Phenom X4 processor, the overall performance was OK. But sadly, the whole AMD Spider platform was no match when compared against an Intel based system using a Core 2 Duo and Quad processor. However, gaming performance was a little better. AMD have released several flavours of the 7xx series chipset. The 790FX is aimed at the high-end/enthusiast user, while the 790X and 770 are more for the mainstream gamer and end user. And finally the 780G ... it's one of AMD's most exciting chipset with integrated graphics supporting DX10 and HT3.0. We've already taken a look at the Gigabyte GA-MA78GM S2H last month, and all I can say is ... it's very promising!

In this review, we'll be taking a look at the Abit AX78 motherboard. Don't be confused. This motherboard does not use AMD's muched talked about 780G chipset. Instead, it uses the AMD 770 chipet designed and aimed at the mainstream user. Basically, it's like the 780G chipset without the integrated graphics. Like all AMD 7xx series, it supports Hyper Transport 3.0, DDR2 ram, AM2/AM2+ processors including the Sempron, Phenom X4, X3 and FX. It also features Abit's silent OTES chipset cooling, SoftMenu BIOS and dual Crossfire support.

Since the 770 is AMD's mainstream chipset, I'm not expecting anything that will outperform the 790FX chipset, but its performance should be just below that of a 790FX. In our tests, we'll be using an AMD Althon FX-62 (AM2) processor which runs at default speed of 2.8Ghz, as well as 2Gb of Adata DDR2-800X ram, Radeon HD3870, 120Gb HDD 7,200rpm, and a PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 860W PSU. Windows Vista with native DX10 was used as our OS.

OK, let's not waste any more time and take a closer look at the Abit AX78 motherboard ...